


Wake Up In The Morning

by Crazythatcounts



Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazythatcounts/pseuds/Crazythatcounts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn't know why he wasn't insane yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake Up In The Morning

He didn't know why he wasn't insane yet.

Considering his family and their history, this was a valid concern, and yet, it also proved itself to be a valid reason for his lack of insanity as well. He _was_ living with a half crazed drunkard with Hephaestus's hammer-fists and the rage of a blood crazed Manson and a steel eyed beauty that leaked envy from her veins into other men and cared little for the sons of her flesh, but rather the flesh of her former self. Neither seemed to separate themselves from the affliction of insanity, and being of their blood and heredity, Veser couldn't seem to find himself a way out of the circle of possible infliction, either.

At the same time, however, _dealing_ with this insanity day in and day out – the fists, the looks, the smell of too much alcohol and too much blood, the soft enchantments wafting from the kitchen that left his mind in a state of unrest that would entrance any man but left him simply undone because he wasn't as Freudian at heart as the songs wished him to be. Dealing with all that insanity and living through it gave the boy a steeled psyche, where no mental illness could walk without being smote by the great god of sanity that resided in Veser's head.

It still didn't explain why he wasn't insane yet.

The reason for this question came from the man beside him as he considered this thought, lying in a bed that wasn't his in the wee hours of the wretched morning, just before it was time to depart for classes if he really wanted to go, where the sun tickled the sky and turned it pink with its unheard laughter. Veser curled a little closer to his companion – partner, lover, boyfriend, Veser had yet to really decide upon words to describe the complicated and convoluted relationship he engaged in with the older man, Ples Tibenoch – pressing his ear to the bare and chest and sticky skin, drying sweat cold against his face. He listened to the reason resonating through the chest like the bass guitar on speakers, the vibrations soft but there, so there.

_Tick, tock. Tick, tock._

He listened to the reason, the ever constant, ever present tick, tock, tick, tock that echoed from the other man like he was the grandfather clock in the hall, pendulum swaying back in forth in time with the world. He listened to Ples's chest, arms wrapped tightly around Ples, gears – gears making up the man's stomach, the reason for the ticking – cold against Veser's forearm, the movement against them making Ples snort and whine a little in his sleep.

Veser briefly wondered if the man ever chimed the hour, but cast the thought aside.

The constant ticking was enough to drive even the bravest man insane, and Veser knew this. A heartbeat was enough to drive a weary man mad. He _had_ read Tell Tale Heart before. The consistency of it, the ever present sound following you from one room to another like some audible spy, always there.

Veser let his eyes drift closed as he lay, and smiled. He wasn't being driven insane by the noise, but rather, he found it put him at peace. It lulled his mind from a frenzy of thought and latent paranoia of his father that kept him from putting his back to doors whenever able into a soupy mess of nothingness that seemed to want to drip from his ears and onto the floor and never bother him again. The ticking, and the presence, were a comfort in a dreary world.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

It was such a comfort that he slept with a pocket-watch under his pillow in his dorm because he needed the sound to sleep. He was dependant, now that he was one with Ples and part of Ples and Ples's lover and friend. He was so used to that sound that sleep without it was pointless and fruitless, yielding nothing but a grumpy teen in the early morning hours.

A hand nestled in Veser's hair and the teen looked up to see Ples watching him with sleep clouded eyes. The soft weight on his head nearly made Veser lapse back into his land of dreams that he visited so little since the days of his childhood. He forced his eyes into submission and kept them open long enough to mouth a drowsy "hey", weighted with sleep like children on the long days of summer.

"Ples?" Veser murmured against the soft skin that remained of Ples's chest, "does the ticking drive you nuts?"

Ples smiled, stroking the top of the selkie's head and letting his own flop back against the pillow. "No, no. I think I am simply used to it. Does… does it bother you?" The unsurity in Ples's voice, the need to be wrong on that front, that question, tugged at Veser's heart a little and made him snort before burying his face against the ticking chest below him.

He grinned, teeth exposed to flesh for a small moment. "Nah, nah. I'm used to it too."

If he was crazy, Veser decided, slipping back into sleep, he didn't particularly mind.


End file.
